father that didn’t require contacting him. She couldn’t see the harm in looking up certain information, and so she did: his address in Paris, his service record, his birthday, his parents’ names and their occupations (famous diabolists in their day, it turned out—he, and therefore she, had quite the pedigree). Jane read these tidbits as she could, when she could, even before Edith had departed, sneaking looks when her mother wasn’t in the Library and Miriam was lost in her studies.
Jane didn’t feel like she was violating her promise to her aunt, and yet she did feel vaguely guilty about her secret researches. But she wasn’t doing anything with the information—she was merely finding out the facts. And the facts were Patrice Durand was two years younger than her mother, he lived in a flat in the heart of Paris, and Jane could contact him if she wanted to.
But she didn’t want to. All that had changed was that the option was now at her fingertips.
It felt frivolous, thinking about her father at all, really. Jane had many more pressing concerns.
While Jane could accept that she’d failed her Test, she would not accept that she was done as a diabolist. Rationally speaking, she knew there was a slim chance that the Société would decide she warranted divvying up to those individuals who might enjoy the use of her liver or eyeballs, but neither would she bow and scrape before them, begging for whatever dreadful jobs they saved for the disappointments.
She needed a plan, and fear being the excellent motivator it was, she came up with one quickly. It was simple, at least relatively so: she would just have to be the very best diabolist the Société had ever seen. She would need to demonstrate her abilities beyond the shadow of a doubt so that no one would ever suspect she was not ideally suited for practicing the Art. Because of course she’d practice it; of course she’d summon a demon. She had to. There was no other choice, even if the thought of again sharing herself in that way made her shiver with revulsion.
Before that, however, she had to complete her Practical—no, she had to excel at it, impressing everyone with her results.
She had to figure out a way to make her broomstick fly.
8
* * *
EDITH HAD PLANNED TO SPEND an extra night or two in London doing a little shopping and calling on Société acquaintances, but Jane’s ungrateful farewell had put her nose so very out of joint that she stepped off the slate circle in the foyer of her Paris apartment not twenty minutes after parking her Citro?n at the Société garage in London.
Mercurialis was thrilled by this; Edith, less so, but her mood improved as she took a deep breath. The air of her foyer smelled like home; it had a crispness she found wonderful after the wretched soggy chill of northern England.
See?
Edith laughed at what felt almost like childishness from Mercurialis. “You were right,” she said. “Coming home was the right choice.”
It was true, Edith could not have spent another moment in England. What a brat Jane was! Edith kicked off her shoes and stomped her way angrily into her flat. A continent was not enough distance. Maybe there had been more merit to Nancy’s complaints about Jane’s moody ways than Edith had previously assumed.
Would you be so angry if you didn’t think of your niece as an ally in the war you’re still waging against your sister?
Edith often appreciated her demon’s insights, but not this time. “Oh, what do you know about it?” she snapped.
Mercurialis said, Much, to her annoyance.
Jane had inherited a bit of her mother’s cool haughtiness, but she was, in general, a pleasant and even-tempered girl eager to make herself distinct from her peers. Edith had therefore expected Jane to swan about the house, making bold statements about passing her Test. Instead, Jane had spent the proper amount of time with her aunt and everyone else, no more, no less, being almost suspiciously modest and amiable.
Jane had put up a wall, emotionally speaking—even after Edith told her what she’d always longed to know about her father! It was absurd, and it was a little bit annoying too. What more could she have done? Why, she had even left a dress for Jane.
Edith knew her niece well enough to know exactly what dress Jane would want as a present for passing her Test, so Edith had had it made for her in Paris,